Nielsen Buys Indian Economic Modelling Firm Indicus

In India, Nielsen has acquired analytics, economic modelling and forecasting services firm Indicus Analytics. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Established in 2000, Indicus is headquartered in New Delhi, with additional offices in Bengaluru and New York. The firm combines a team of market and trends analysts; analytics solutions giving data on the economy and consumers at granular levels - by city, district and neighbourhood; and patent-pending algorithms for distilling insights from public data sources.

Piyush Mathur, President of Nielsen India Region, says the acquisition will bring additional capabilities for macro and microeconomic research and analytics, with relevance for both the public and private sectors. In addition, the firms plan to develop new services to help understand Indian economic activity by micro geography; provide forecasting for various product and service categories; and understand consumer segments by income, education, health, infrastructure and other parameters.

Laveesh Bhandari (pictured), Indicus Analytics founder and MD, comments: 'Our services and data products have received world-wide recognition and we see the acquisition by Nielsen as the next stage of our growth. We can now look forward to expand our premier services and products not just in India but globally as well.'

Web sites: www.nielsen.com and www.indicus.net .